If you watch the full album visualizer for Transa, you’ll see a house standing in the middle of the forest, witnessing all the beautiful songs that are part of this project. Slowly, as each track plays, you can appreciate how time moves and the sky changes colour, with the seasons coming and going — a poetic articulation of transition and blossoming.
One of the top comments on the video reads: “Can’t believe people aren’t talking about this more. First time in a while something like this has happened in music, and it’s amazing.” A true statement. Transa is defined as a 46-track prismatic spiritual journey in eight chapters, and it is the most significant thing to happen to pop music, intertwined with social commitment, since Live 8, We Are the World, or One Love Manchester. It’s one of those rare occasions when pop music becomes an engine for change and awareness-raising — this time, for trans lives and trans rights.
“I was like, we need to create a narrative through this album that positions trans people as leaders in our society,” says Transa co-founder Dust Reid in an interview with The Guardian. Together with Massima Bell, they conceived and produced this project, in which more than a hundred artists contributed their music. Transa is one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken by Red Hot, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation producing music and media dedicated to social change since its founding in 1990 during the AIDS pandemic.
The album is a spiritual journey through eight chapters and forty-six songs, highlighting the gifts of many of today’s most daring and imaginative trans and non-binary artists. It softens the edges of the world we know and invokes powerful dreams of futures that might one day break through its cracks. The instantly memorable album cover reflects the tension between nature and built environments, as well as the tension of trans identities within the Western gender binary. Transa is an important project because it brings together the best musicians of our time to deliver a clear message: trans lives matter.
The project also pays tribute to one of the most significant losses in the pop music sphere in recent years, SOPHIE. This is done through a magnificent version of Is It Cold in the Water by Moses Sumney and Anohni. Transa: Selects reintroduces the world to Sade Adu, featuring a song dedicated to her trans son, Izaak. Under the Shadow of Another Moon is a beautiful spoken-word manifesto by electro-acoustic saxophonist Cole Pulice and actress Hunter Schafer. How Sweet I Roamed is an incredible interpretation of William Blake’s poem by legendary musician Jeff Tweedy and experimental artist Claire Rousay.
Pink Ponies brings the unexpected yet fantastic collaboration between Teddy Geiger and Yaeji. Point of Disgust testifies to the collaboration between Perfume Genius and Alan Sparhawk, offering a version that holds deep layers of meaning for fans of Low. Just Last Night combines the musical production of Helado Negro with a recital by American poet and writer Eileen Myles, winner of the Lambda Literary Award. L’Rain’s People Are Small/Rapture heightens emotion and memory by featuring voices from the NYC Trans Oral History Project — and there’s so much more.
Sam Smith, Devendra Banhart, Blake Mills, Faye Webster, Julien Baker, Quinn Christopherson, Frankie Cosmos, Hand Habits, André 3000, Jlin, Kara Jackson, Sharon Van Etten, Ezra Furman, Cassandra Jenkins, Clairo, Bartees Strange, Lauren Auder, and many more artists have contributed to this project, brought to life through the incredible efforts of Reid, Bell, and the entire Red Hot family. As defined by Bell, “Transa” is both a verb and an action, meaning “to love without limits” and “to realise that you are more than you know.”
The forty-six songs are structured into eight chapters that reflect and narrate the processes many trans lives undergo in today’s world: womb of the soul, survival, awakening, grief, acceptance, liberation, and reinvention. It serves as testimony, homage, and guide.
According to the report LGBTIQ Equality at a Crossroads: Progress and Challenges made by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights in 2024, over half of trans, non-binary, and gender-diverse individuals have experienced suicidal thoughts, while two in three trans and intersex people have faced harassment.
Art is vital to the fight. Music is crucial for change. Trans lives matter.